Dripfree Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 Well I finally had success tonight. I built my SIO2PC RS232 adapter and after a little trial and error I got it to load Sparta dos. I am incredibly excited now because this is going to really open up a lot of doors for me and my little 800xl. I see that I still got a lot to learn and Id like some info from you guys to help me along. First what file types does ape accept? So far I have only tried ATR. files just cuz I noticed that was what the DOS files that came with it were. Can it handle ATX. or XEX.? If not is there a convertor? I would just do the trial and error method like I usually do but I'm using an old Toshiba laptop I had lying around to interface with my 800. Its the only pc I got with a RS232 port plus I didn't have any other use for It so now its gona be a dedicated extension of my Atari. The only way I have to transfer files to it is by burning cd's. So I don't want to work by trial and error or I'm gona make alot of coasters. Where Is the best place to get files known to work well with ape. I have got a handful from http://atarionline.pl I have had about a 50/50 success rate. Boulder Dash and Tetris worked. Ballblazer wont load, and Rescue on Fractalus loaded but then crashed about 30 seconds into the game. I did finish this thing late and haven't had to much time to play with it. I wanted to type this up before I went to bed so hopefully Ill get some pointers I can try when I get home from work tomorrow. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks much Dripfree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 (edited) Very cool. I have a similar setup...800XL with SIO2PC RS232 edition connected to an old otherwise worthless laptop. I prefer to use ASPEQT over APE. http://sourceforge.net/projects/aspeqt/ They are very similar, but this one is freeware. Either program can load either ATR or XEX files. ATR files are loaded as disk drives, and XEX are loaded as 'Boot Atari Executable'. Best place to get ROMS that I've found is called "Vjetnam". Do a google search. Good luck, and don't forget to hold down "Option" to disable basic when turning on the 800XL. Also, a USB flash drive may be a better choice for getting files to your laptop. Edited April 30, 2013 by RickR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam242 Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 SIO2PC devices emulate a disk drive and therefore will only use .ATR files (disk images) as far as I know... Some good sources for them are www.atarimania.com , atari.fandal.cz , and atarionline.pl that you already found. It really does open up a huge new world of old and new software! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xuel Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 SIO2PC devices emulate a disk drive and therefore will only use .ATR files (disk images) as far as I know... SIO2PC devices generally just convert the signals while the software on the PC actually emulates the disk drive. That being the case, it's possible for the PC software to feed the Atari a virtual disk image on-the-fly that does nothing but load and run a .XEX file that the user chooses on the PC side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam242 Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 SIO2PC devices generally just convert the signals while the software on the PC actually emulates the disk drive. That being the case, it's possible for the PC software to feed the Atari a virtual disk image on-the-fly that does nothing but load and run a .XEX file that the user chooses on the PC side. I stand corrected. Will the APE software do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xuel Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 I haven't used APE but it appears that its PC-Mirror feature provides similar functionality. With PC-Mirror you can mount a directory on your PC as a virtual Atari drive. If you boot the Atari from that drive then you get a menu on the Atari where you can select and run an .XEX file that's in the PC directory. AspeQt also has folder mounting and atari8warez recently added boot support to it. Both folder mounting and direct .XEX booting are useful in different situations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted April 30, 2013 Share Posted April 30, 2013 AspeQt also has folder mounting and atari8warez recently added boot support to it. Both folder mounting and direct .XEX booting are useful in different situations. Thank you Xuel, I'd also like to add that the documentation supplied on the link "boot support" is kind of old and that AspeQt now provides folder boot option for 6 different DOSes, and the user does not need to provide any DOS files as they come included with AspeQt. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dripfree Posted May 1, 2013 Author Share Posted May 1, 2013 Thanks a lot for all the info guys. I really like that site Vjetnam. It seems all the files are ATR. I got about 50 games from there and with all the ones I tested It's a 100% success rate. I do have to burn cds to gets these games on my old laptop cuz Its actually is a pre usb laptop. Its running windows 95 but seems to run ape flawlessly. Anyone know if AspeQT runs on these old systems? Id like to give it a try and would even consider running an old linux os if thats at all possible. Also I do have a rs232 to usb adapter which I believe may allow me to use my windows7 laptop but I have not really played with that yet just cuz Id prefer to dedicate my old laptop to the job of running my atari. Any way I'm in the "butter zone now baby" Thanks to all the help I've been getting from members of this site! I'm going to go play a little more before bed so thanks again. Dripfree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted May 1, 2013 Share Posted May 1, 2013 Aspeqt should work on that laptop. I believe that a USB serial adapter WILL work for aspeqt, but not for APE. That's what I found when I tried it on a newer laptop. So I started just using aspeqt and never looked back. My Atari-dedicated scraptop is running XP and has wireless. Oooooh, modern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted May 1, 2013 Share Posted May 1, 2013 Ape is picky about USB adaptors, there are a couple that work but most don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dripfree Posted May 4, 2013 Author Share Posted May 4, 2013 (edited) So im rockin along with this SIO2PC. I got it working awesome on my windows 95 laptop with APE (tried aspQt but it says I'm missing ws2_32.dll will experiment with that a little more later). When I bought the parts for this project everything came in 2 packs. So I built a second. Then I had an inspiration. I took my rs232 to usb adapter and cut open the end to expose the circuit board. I took a hacksaw cut off the serial plug on the end, and soldered the serial wires from my sio2pc board right to the circuit board for my rs232 to usb adapter. Bingo now I got a sio2rs232 for my non usb win 95 laptop and I also got an sio2usb for my windows 7 laptop! Both work perfect when plugged straight into my atari. Im now trying to figure out the daisy chain. I have it plugged into the second port of my 1050 I want to start copying some atr. files to 5.25 disks but can't quite figure it out. I was hoping someone could tell me which virtual drive to load the disk images into where to load the DOS from. I'm assuming I have to load the DOS from my 1050. At the moment I only have DOS 2.5 and 3.0 on real floppy's. I was hoping some one could walk me through this process. I should specify I'm using aspeQt on my windows 7 machine and ape on my 95 machine. I can use either for the job. Will either do the job better then the other? I really appreciate every ones help I would not have been able to build these things or get them working if it weren't for the help of this great community! Dripfree Edited May 4, 2013 by Dripfree 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted May 4, 2013 Share Posted May 4, 2013 I'm not sure I completely understand what you are trying to do. To copy ATR to floppy, you'll probably need an Atari copy program of some sort. DOS copy will work, but probably won't make good copies of any ATR files that have copy protection. So it sounds like you have it hooked up properly. Atari -> 1050 -> SIO2PC -> Laptop. On the laptop, you'd load your ATR file as D2: Put a DOS disk in the 1050 and boot the Atari. It should boot to DOS. Once there, choose "disk copy", tell it your source is D2. When it asks for a target, pick D1, and MAKE SURE to take our your dos disk now and put in a blank floppy. I think that should do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted May 4, 2013 Share Posted May 4, 2013 Im now trying to figure out the daisy chain. I have it plugged into the second port of my 1050 I want to start copying some atr. files to 5.25 disks but can't quite figure it out. I was hoping someone could tell me which virtual drive to load the disk images into where to load the DOS from. I'm assuming I have to load the DOS from my 1050. You can boot your Atari either from the 1050 or from AspeQt. If you boot from the 1050 (D1) you need to unload any disk images present on AspeQt's D1 slot to prevent AspeQt from responding to D1: disk requests. Conversely, if you want to boot from AspeQt, load a DOS disk image to the D1: slot of AspeQt and make sure your 1050 is set as D2, D3, or D4. Once you boot, you can copy files from an ATR image mounted into any available slot in AspeQt to the floppy in 1050. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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